"Thanks for crewing for me, buddy."

"No sacrifice here," Jack said as he unwound the rope from the cleat and helped prepare the sleek sailboat. It was a hot, Friday afternoon, the water clear as glass and the sun bright enough to make him squint behind his sunglasses as he looked up into the rigging. Just one more advantage of working for himself, Jack thought.

He imagined that even away from her office, Grace would probably be holed up in her room at the hotel on her laptop, doing research, until at least 5:00, probably later. Or maybe curled up by the pool reading deposition transcripts from the state court divorce case. The thought of her in a bikini going through legal documents in her designer sunglasses made him smile.

And he had to give her credit. They'd spent about six hours the previous day reviewing the files in both cases, discussing the law, and she'd been sharp and tenacious. By the end of the day, he felt like he'd gone through a crash course in sexual harassment claims under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act. And he'd been disappointed when she passed on dinner, claiming she needed to spend the next few hours answering emails and phone calls from her office. This was not, she'd informed him, the only case she was working on.

Jimmy used the small motor to navigate around the other boats moored in the harbor, until he could raise the sails.

"Hey," Jack said, raising his voice above the sound of the motor and the gulls circling overhead. "She call you yet?"

"Negative. If you come back to the house later, not one word to Ellen. Slick doesn't want her mom to know she's in town, I've got nothing to say about it."

Jack shook his head. "Maybe if you ever called her by her name I would have had a clue who I was meeting.

"And hey, how come all I ever hear about is how smart your step-daughter is. You never told me what a looker she is."

"I've got a picture in my office."

"You mean that graduation photo?" Jack shook his head.

Jimmy looked over at him. "You keep your hands to yourself, son, and your mind on that lawsuit."

Jack grinned, and imagined her turning an icy glare on any guy who tried to put the moves on her. "I think 'Slick' can take care of herself."

"Maybe," Jimmy said, looking thoughtful. "Maybe."

* * *

Jack let himself be talked into coming back to Jimmy's for dinner, mostly because it was just easy and convenient, but also partly because now that he'd found out his new co-counsel Grace Wallace and Jimmy's step-daughter "Slick" were one and the same, he wanted to picture her in the house where she'd grown up. It never hurt to know a little bit more about the person you were working with.

She must not come home very often, he realized, or he'd have run into her before. He figured she was in her late twenties, so by the time he got to know Jimmy she'd already have been in Philadelphia. He'd spent plenty of time with Grace's younger brothers – mostly out on Jimmy's boat -- and honestly had forgotten until now that Jimmy wasn't their real dad. Jimmy and Ellen and the boys reminded him of his own family – it was an easy, loud, good-natured relationship that made Jack feel right at home. He didn't see as much of the older one these days, with Ted off in medical school. But JJ had decided to go to college close to home, and still hung around the house enough that Jimmy teased him regularly about wasting money on the dorm room and food plan. The cafeteria, JJ always laughingly responded, was no match for his mom's cooking.

Jimmy's house was sleek and modern and right on the beach, with a wide flagstone patio in the back, and a dock that stretched out to deeper water. The walls on the beach side were mostly glass, and the look was spectacular enough that the house had been featured a few years ago in one of those architectural magazines. It was a showplace that suited Jimmy's level of success as one of the top personal injury attorneys in the state, and his reputation for living big. The first time Jack had been inside, he'd been surprised to find that instead of the impersonal decorator-inspired sophistication he'd expected, the house felt like a welcoming place to sit back and relax after a long day. Classy but comfortable, it fit the people who lived there.

He looked around again today as he followed Jimmy across the patio and in through the back door, and tried to picture a younger Grace sitting at the huge granite island in the kitchen doing her homework. A car door slammed out front, and Jimmy said, "Perfect timing. Now we don't have to figure out what to eat."

Ellen's heels clicked across the marble floor.

"I heard that," she said, "and I just might make you fire up the grill."

Jimmy's cooking ability, as far as Jack knew, had only two options: Grill something or call for takeout.

"Hello, Jack." Ellen seemed to be studying him a little speculatively.

"How are you doing?"

"Grace called me today," she said, turning to Jimmy. "Seems like she's in town – has been in town several days now actually - and she's working on a case with a lawyer named Jack Rollins, who she thought you might be acquainted with." She dropped her purse and a designer tote full of paper work on the counter with a thud.

"Now you wouldn't know anything about that, would you?"

"Um. Well. . . " Jimmy looked uncomfortable, and Jack marveled at how this giant of a man who regularly reduced witnesses to stammering fools and intimidated almost every defense attorney who dared to take him on, could be left speechless by this petite woman in a chic sundress and designer heels.

"That's what I thought," Ellen said.

Jack looked for a physical resemblance between his tall co-counsel with her sun-bleached hair and her small dark-haired mother, and concluded that Grace must take after her father. There was something about the way she and Ellen both carried themselves, though, a sort of natural style. And they were both beautiful women. When he first met Ellen he thought he understood why Jimmy left the single life behind. There was a quality about her that made you immediately feel comfortable – unlike his co- counsel, who seemed more than a little uptight. He wondered if Grace had the same heart as her mother. If she did, she kept it well hidden under her professional exterior.

Ellen sighed. "Why don't you two grab a few beers and meet me out on the patio?" She reached for her tote of papers. "I'll just run upstairs and change and –"

"Let me get that," Jimmy said smoothly, lifting the bag out of her reach.

"I'm fine. Really. You can just relax with Jack."

"Jack can take care of himself," Jimmy said, maneuvering Ellen out of the kitchen and toward the wide staircase. "Make yourself at home, Jack," Jimmy said, throwing the words back over his shoulder.

Jack took a beer out of the fridge, and walked into the living room, wondering idly how long it would take Jimmy to 'help' Ellen carry her paperwork upstairs and change out of the pretty sundress. Ellen managed her own high-end boutique and looked the part, but at home she was more likely to be seen in a pair of comfortably worn shorts and a t-shirt.

He walked over to the shelf and picked up one of the photos. He recognized Ted and JJ instantly, but he had to look closer to see the attorney he'd spent hours working with yesterday in the face of the smiling young girl whose arms were flung casually around the shoulders of the two little boys. He picked up the photo next to it and studied the young girl standing in what looked like the lobby of an office building, beside a tall distinguished man in a business suit. Grace's father, Jack surmised. He'd never bothered to look through the scattering of photos before. And he wondered how Jimmy felt about having a picture of his wife's former husband sitting on a shelf in his living room.

No, Jimmy wasn't the type to let something like that bother him, Jack thought, as he heard a muffled laugh from upstairs. He set the photos back down on the shelf and went back out to the patio, popping the tab on his beer and settling into one of the recliners by the pool.

Ellen came out a few minutes later, looking a bit flushed, and Jack decided not to speculate on what the two of them had been up to upstairs.

They ended up eating sandwiches by the pool – since Ellen wasn't inclined to cook, and Jimmy declared it was too hot an afternoon to grill anything.

"You better change that attitude by Sunday," Ellen said. "I convinced Grace to come over for a cookout and spend the afternoon." She turned to Jack. "You should come too."

"Yeah," Jimmy said. "Give you a chance to talk to Slick about that case you're working on."

"You better not," Ellen said. "That girl spends too much time working already. So you're to come and relax, Jack, but no law talk." She gave him a stern look.

"Yes Ma'am," Jack said. It would be no hardship to spend some down time with his sexy co-counsel, even if she was Jimmy's stepdaughter. He had a sudden image of her when she'd lost her balance momentarily on the barstool. There was some sort of tension between her and Jimmy, but from what Jack could tell it all seemed to be on Grace's side. Strange that her mother had to "convince" her to come over for an afternoon when Grace was in town. He thought about the loud and mostly disorganized gatherings at his own parents' house, and couldn't imagine a situation where his mother would have to issue a special invitation for him or his brothers and sisters – or any of their horde of cousins, for that matter – to come by for a meal. And he wondered again why she choose to stay at a hotel when her parents – well, her mother and stepfather – had a beautiful home on the beach with plenty of room so close-by? Apparently the easy rapport he'd seen between Jimmy and Ellen and the two boys didn't extend to Grace. It was . . . interesting.

Jack took another long swig of his beer, and listened to Jimmy and Ellen debating whether a movie remake they'd seen recently held up to the original. All of a sudden he couldn't wait until Sunday afternoon.